Francis Denounces Gender Choice.

pope-francis-x750_copyIn the ‘water is wet’ category, Francis has railed against the concept of people being transgender. Here we go again with the whole “oh, it’s just a lifestyle choice” nonsense.

Pope Francis is getting criticism for speaking out against the idea that gender can be chosen.

“Today, in schools they are teaching this to children — to children! — that everyone can choose their gender,” the pope said in a meeting with Catholic bishops in Poland last week, the Associated Press reports. The Vatican released a transcript of his remarks today.

He quoted his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who retired in 2013 but still lives at the Vatican: “Speaking with Pope Benedict, who is well and has a clear mind, he was telling me: ‘Holiness, this is the epoch of sin against God the Creator, he’s intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, this way, this way, and we are doing the opposite.’”

Pope Francis has previously denounced the idea of gender mutability, saying that “gender theory … does not recognize the order of creation” and calling for “valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity,” as “it is not a healthy attitude which would seek to cancel out sexual difference.”

[…]

Criticism of the pope came from Kelsey Louie, CEO of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, who said he was “saddened and disturbed” by the remarks. In an emailed statement, Louie continued, “Our children deserve to know that of course they have the right to choose, and GMHC applauds all schools that teach students not to oppress who they are, but instead live the life as the gender they most identify with.” He noted that in light of the mass shooting at the Pulse LGBT nightclub in Orlando, “what we need now is for our world leaders to spread messages of tolerance and acceptance.”

The Advocate has the full story.

Anime, Porn, and JFK Conspiracies…

Supporters of Donald Trump at rally (Photo: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock)

Supporters of Donald Trump at rally (Photo: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock)

Some Trump supporters have spoken up on Reddit. The question was what would it take for a Trump supporter to switch to a different candidate. The responses are interesting, in a Donald sort of way.

User ThreeStarUniform said that if Trump admitted “I was only running to clinch it for Hillary,” would lose his support. Threatening a draft or saying anime isn’t real would also be an end game.

The Reddit community agreed that anime was a critical issue for them this election. “I didn’t even know I could be this triggered,” ihatethesidebar admitted.

This is an issue? That’s news to me.

Pornography is also an important issue for Reddit users. “Coming after internet porn is getting pretty f*cking close to finishing him off in my book,” one person wrote, as snickers followed.

Jrf_1973 is concerned about the TPP. They would be done if Trump were to say, “I’ve spoken to Hillary, and she is definitely definitely going to stop TPP. And I know I said I was going to do that, because it’s such a terrible treaty.. but if Hillary is truly against it, and I believe she is, then I must be for it. So if elected, I will absolutely pass TPP.”

Users agreed that they understood all of the words in that statement and that Trump has “the best words.”

Uh…I’m at a loss for words. Words that when strung together actually make sense, that is.

Redditer thisishowiwrite said that when they saw the list of tweets of Trump denying climate change is real, that was the end for them. Another user corrected them saying that Trump only denies climate change, unless it impacts him.

[…]

Another Reddit user described a creative event in detail that it would take to pull support from Trump this way: “Says he loves ISIS and takes a big sh*t on the American flag that’s covering the casket of a dead soldier while Westboro Baptist Church throws confetti on him.”

ScipioAfricanvs remarked that Mr. Trump has already taken “a big sh*t in the casket of a dead soldier,” referring to Cpt. Khan.

I’m glad someone pointed out the situation with Trump and his complete nastiness towards the Khan family.

A user who admitted his father is a die-hard Trump supporter who would never leave the candidate, summed it. “He could murder his wife, I wouldn’t care.” “We arent voting for trump, we are voting to find out the truth about Obama and where he came from, and what grades he got, and who his real father is,” his father told him.

“My dad then started talking about how he will never find out what happened to JFK, maybe his grandson (age 9) will find out, but in my dad’s lifetime he won’t get to know,” the user continues. “And it is ‘obvious the JFK assassination was set up by someone in the government.’ But we won’t ever know what really happened with JFK, or all the secrets Obama has. A vote for Trump would ‘reveal all of Obama’s secrets’ and ‘get Obama and Hillary locked up.’”

The user clarified, “My dad also believes that trump can’t actually harm America because ‘Congress won’t let him.’ But Hillary and Obama will make America a third world country that we won’t be able to recover from in my (me, age 31) lifetime.”

How in the hell anyone could possibly reason with the above person is beyond me. There’s an intense level of stupid in this country.

Via Raw Story.

Crayola Awesome!

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Herb Williams works in crayon, and his pieces are stunning, pure awesomeness.

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Crayons are a gateway drug. To most adults, the sight and smell of crayons produce specific memories of childhood. The twist in the road to nostalgia is the creation of a new object, from a medium in which it was not intended. This element of unexpected interaction and play had me at hello.

I am one of the only individual wholesalers of crayons in the world. Because I am in pursuit of larger ideas, the playful aspect of my medium is integral to the works of art I’m creating. I can subversively insert a concept that may bloom well after the initial recognition of the form as a familiar children’s implement. To create my work I need to produce sculpture on a grand scale (which takes thousands and thousands of crayons), so I order each color individually packed (3000 to a case) and cut the sticks down to the length I need. I then bond the paper—not the wax—to a form I have carved or cast, completely enveloping the form.

I am interested in identifying iconic objects that society perceives to fit one role and then reintroducing them in different subtexts. Intriguing questions arise when an object associated with childhood, such as a crayon, is used to address issues dealing with more adult matters, such as sexuality, religion, and social hierarchy. The sculptures are childlike in their curious approach to the object as icon, but beguiling and satisfying to me in the use of pure color as form. Larger room installations also add the element of playing to the olfactory sense, as the scent of the wax completely saturates the environment. My intent is to continue to seriously create art that looks at itself unseriously.

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Spend some looking around his galleries, you won’t be disappointed! One of Mr. Williams’s projects was also featured on Colossal.

One Skein.

This 2″ x 1″ section of knots is one skein of embroidery thread. A skein is 8 m (8.7 yards). This marks the 127th skein used so far in the Tree Quilt. If I have the time to order online, I do, because it’s a substantial savings at 49 cents per skein. The times I have to pick up what I need at Joann’s, not so great, because the cost per skein there is 70 cents to 1 dollar per skein.

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© C. Ford. All rights reserved.

Shackled Skeletons Unearthed.

Cemetery

At least 80 skeletons lie in a mass grave in an ancient Greek cemetery, their wrists clamped by iron shackles.

They are the victims, say archaeologists, of a mass execution. But who they were, how they got there and why they
appear to have been buried with a measure of respect — that all remains a mystery.

They were found earlier this year in part of the Falyron Delta necropolis — a large ancient cemetery unearthed during the construction of a national opera house and library between downtown Athens and the port of Piraeus.

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…But on a rare tour of the site, archeologists carefully showed Reuters the skeletons, some lying in a long neat row in
the dug-out sandy ground, others piled on top of each other, arms and legs twisted with their jaws hanging open.

“They have been executed, all in the same manner. But they have been buried with respect,” said Stella Chryssoulaki, head of excavations.

“They are all tied at the hands with handcuffs and most of them are very very young and in a very good state of health when they were executed.”

The experts hope DNA testing and research by anthropologists will uncover exactly how the rows of people died. Whatever happened was violent — most had their arms bound above their heads, the wrists tied together.

But the orderly way they have been buried suggest these were more than slaves or common criminals.

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Haunting remains. Hopefully, an answer will be found. There’s a theory these might be the remains of young people involved in a coup attempt. The full article is here.

Natural Roles and Abilities.

jedwards_112007_180x238White nationalist James Edwards, who is credentialed by the Trump campaign, decided to speak out about Hillary Clinton, and what his god thinks about that uppity woman.

James Edwards, host of The Political Cesspool, reflected on Chelsea Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention and opined that Hillary Clinton could “not be the mother God wants you to be” because she was an “extremist radical, feminist.”

“So I’m sure that there is love between Hillary Clinton and her daughter, but I did not see the family and familial bonds out of the Clinton family that I saw from the Trump family,” he explained. “Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton sleep in the same room? Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton even sleeps with men?”

Weren’t you just whining about Chelsea Clinton’s speech? Do you think she came from a cabbage patch or something? Personally, I don’t think about who people might be sleeping with. None of my business. I find it more than telling that far right assholes can’t seem to think about anything else.

“Should Hillary Clinton be president of the United States?” Edwards asked his listeners, adding that “under God’s law, a woman should not even have dominion over her household.”

“There are natural roles and abilities that men and women have that are God-ordained and together, they are complementary of one another, and together, a man and a woman can raise a family,” the radio host insisted. “The husband is the ruler of the house under God’s law, and that’s the law that I abide by,”

Edwards went on to assert that the country would be “better” if women did not have the right to vote.

“I mean, ask yourself that because we see women are so — even more than men, and even though men now — need this status, they need to be accepted, they need food, water, shelter, and status in order to survive, but women especially need that,” Edwards said. “You know, I think the model before suffrage was a husband and a wife come together as a unit and the man casts the vote for that family.”

What an idiot.

Via Raw Story.

A Gaming Leaf.

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People who are taking their gaming very seriously apparently want a serious table upon which to gather around, one that’s purpose-built and optimized for immersive gaming. But while building or buying a table might appeal to many, having a dedicated gaming table is not an option for many of us.

Gamer Peter Hicks, of the Beer and Battle podcast, solved this problem in a decidedly 21st century way by building a gaming leaf for his regular dining room table that incorporates a flat-screen computer monitor. By serving maps, terrain, and other game materials to the monitor, the dining room table becomes anything Peter wants it be. This is a really clever and reasonably inexpensive (you can get very cheap flat screen displays these days) way to create a unique group gaming experience.

[…]

Peter built the frame for his gaming leaf at his local TechShop in Chandler, AZ. He used cheap Home Depot 2×4’s for the frame and built it based on the dimensions of the table whose leaf it was replacing. The display used is a Dell 27″ IPS monitor (which is not cheap). Peter says he chose that display specifically because of its use of tempered glass.

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The finished table in action, with a flotilla of tablets and future phones around it to provide additional gaming data to players and the DM. In terms of what software is used, Peter says that while several of the other DMs he plays with use other means to operate the display, he uses GIMP. With it, he layers the rooms and handouts so that he can show only what he wants to, creating a satisfying sort of fog of war vibe.

There’s much more, article and photos at Make. You can see more of Peter’s game table inserts on this Instagram #bettergamingthroughtechnology tag.

Traditional With A Twist.

Billing his work as contemporary Navajo pottery, sculptor and graphic artist Gerald A. Pinto is expanding the boundaries of traditional sculpting. Courtesy of the artist.

Billing his work as contemporary Navajo pottery, sculptor and graphic artist Gerald A. Pinto is expanding the boundaries of traditional sculpting. Courtesy of the artist.

Billing his work as contemporary Navajo pottery, sculptor and graphic artist Gerald A. Pinto is expanding the boundaries of traditional sculpting by mixing media such as copper, turquoise and even battery-power into his work in innovative ways.

“I always tell people it blends the past with the present,” says Pinto. “Even though I call it contemporary, I showcase some of the more traditional designs, too.”

Gerald Pinto's Elemental gourd and seed pots. (Courtesy)

Gerald Pinto’s Elemental gourd and seed pots. (Courtesy)

Pinto has been doing pottery for around 28 years, but committed to it full-time after leaving his job with Amtrak in 2003. He credits his family with being his biggest artistic influences and inspirations. “My mom is a weaver and my dad was a silversmith; they taught me a lot about Navajo designs.” His cousin, Dennis Charlie, who is known for his carved pots, encouraged him to pursue the art. “For a while, I was doing pieces similar to his, but over the years, I moved towards my own style.

“I developed it over the years … the copper and the turquoise is how people recognize my work.” Brown pots, that were pit-fired with copper and turquoise, are part of the Elemental Series.

The full article is at ICTMN. Gerald A. Pinto on Facebook.

31.

Herbert Hoover lived with an uncle who was an Indian agent on the Osage Nation when he was six years old. Whitehouse.gov

Herbert Hoover lived with an uncle who was an Indian agent on the Osage Nation when he was six years old. Whitehouse.gov

Fifty years before Herbert Clark Hoover took office as the 31st president of the United States, he spent eight months living on the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, where he “learned much aboriginal lore of the woods and streams, and how to make bows and arrows.”

Hoover, who was six years old at the time, lived with an uncle who was an Indian agent. He attended “Indian Sunday-school” and “had constant association with the little Indians at the agency school,” he wrote in his memoirs.

Born to a Quaker family in Iowa in 1874, Hoover also had relatives who worked as Indian agents in Oregon and Alaska. He is the only U.S. president to have lived on an Indian reservation.

“Hoover had an empathy for the Indians,” said Matt Schaefer, an archivist at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. “He had all these touch points with Indians as a child and young adult that led to this more enlightened Indian policy.”

[Read more…]